


twenty questions

by autisticandrewminyard (transtwinyards)



Series: trans andrew [9]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transtwinyards/pseuds/autisticandrewminyard
Summary: There were times in Columbia when Andrew couldn’t bear going outside.The cloying heat made him break out in a sweat that was rare enough back when he lived in Oakland. This was more like Martinez heat, but with the wafting simmer that came in from a polluted city instead of the ocean.Aaron was shirtless on his own bed across the room, reading through what seemed to be a sci-fi novel so, likewise, Andrew was also shirtless on his own bed. The main difference was that Andrew still had to hide under the covers, feeling melancholy at the sight of a flat plane of skin, some stray yellowish hues of healing bruises, maybe a few hairs.





	twenty questions

**Author's Note:**

> well, this wasn't gonna come out, supposedly. but due to Many Things Happening, it is now

There were times in Columbia when Andrew couldn’t bear going outside.

The cloying heat made him break out in a sweat that was rare enough back when he lived in Oakland. This was more like Martinez heat, but with the wafting simmer that came in from a polluted city instead of the ocean.

Aaron was shirtless on his own bed across the room, reading through what seemed to be a sci-fi novel so, likewise, Andrew was also shirtless on his own bed. The main difference was that Andrew still had to hide under the covers, feeling melancholy at the sight of a flat plane of skin, some stray yellowish hues of healing bruises, maybe a few hairs.

“You don’t have to hide,” Aaron said.

Andrew looked up from where he was staring at Aaron’s chest, ignoring the sweat on his upper lip and the occasional twitch of his hand. There was a pressing urge inside his head he wanted to suppress, the feeling of envy at the sound of a deeper voice, a more defined jawline.

Aaron blinked back at him lazily, then, when enough time passed for acceptable word exchange, went back to reading.

It wasn’t hard to just come out of the covers. It wasn’t that he was scared Aaron might do something to him (lie), or that he was scared that he was uncomfortable with the feeling of having his chest exposed while there was another guy in the room (also a lie). It was that Andrew…

Well, okay, Andrew didn’t have a reason. He just wouldn’t.

So, Andrew stared at the wall instead, another beige color, another flat plane. It had the same color as the police station’s waiting room in San Jose.

“Aaron.”

Aaron put his book down his chest, giving Andrew his full attention.

“How many counties have you been in California?”

Aaron tapped at his tummy, and Andrew watched the way his veins seemed stark in the natural light in the room. When Aaron spoke, Andrew realized he was tapping the same beat on his pillow.

“I’ve never been outside of San Jose and Berkley,” Aaron said.

Andrew nodded, feeling his sweat wipe on the pillowcase. “How long did you live in San Jose?”

“Alright,” Aaron huffed, sitting up and putting his closed book on the desk between their beds. “Time to play twenty questions then. I was raised there until we moved when I was ten.”

Andrew traced patterns on his pillowcase, not looking at Aaron now that he was in a higher position while speaking. “You have two turns.”

There was a sigh before Aaron spoke, “Why are you asking?”

“Bored.”

“And why are you asking about San Jose in particular?”

Andrew jammed his finger into his pillowcase. “I lived there for two weeks before I turned eight.”

The memory of it, like most of his memories, was as vivid as the day it happened. The dim lighting inside the station the night he, Riley, and Lilly were brought to the police station on the way home from school, the sore feeling of not moving too long, the sounds of the radio wafting through the station. At the moment, all Andrew could think of was the police officer that gave him a cupcake when he admitted it was his birthday, and the fact that he could have met Aaron had he gone to a different public school.

Aaron was silent, expecting Andrew’s turn. Andrew carefully dropped his hand onto the pillow, eyes straying to the desk. “Favorite color?”

“Wow,” Aaron deadpanned. “Green. Yours?”

“Red. How close are you and Luther?”

Aaron let out what sounded like a laugh. Andrew couldn’t exactly identify it as a laugh, sounding dead and derisive. “I’m sure you were there when I acted practically hostile. That’s not a one-time thing. What do you think about him?”

“Religious nut.”

Aaron did laugh this time, sounding more genuine. “True.”

Andrew turned his head to the side, decidedly not smiling at the sound of his own brother’s laugh. He glanced over, noting the dimple at the side of Aaron’s face, his skin crawling a little at the impression of eyes on him.

“Do we have any other relatives?”

Aaron pondered over that, his gaze now thankfully averted to the floor. “Grandma died around the time I was four, but we never visited Columbia so we only ever got letters from her. Grandpa’s as non-existent as dad is. We have cousin who lives in Germany right now.”

He waited, again, until the time for a response passed, but Andrew didn’t have anything to say to that. He just asked out of genuine curiosity. Family was a foreign concept to an orphan.

“Do you have any friends from juvie?”

Andrew thought back to his cell, the itchy blankets and rock hard mattress still way better than any of the beds he’d been given in his life. The door didn’t open quietly, and virtually no one ever bothered him in there. He thought back to the people he came to know in his time.

“A few of them considered me theirs. It wasn’t completely mutual, but they were more tolerable than the psychiatrists,” he explained. He wondered why Aaron didn’t ask how Andrew even got in there in the first place. He wondered if Aaron knew what he meant by this, if he understood the feeling of being befriended by someone you could tolerate, if he understood that tolerance goes a long way for people like them.

Andrew looked up to glance again, and seeing Aaron look him in the eye was enough to make him know that yes, Aaron knew exactly what he was talking about.

Andrew gathered the blanket around his front and sat up, making sure to have his damp back against the significantly cooler wall. He still did not look Aaron directly in the eye, but he was getting there.

“Favorite ice cream flavor.”

Aaron blinked, then said, “Anything without nuts in it. Yours?”

“If you have anything sweeter than chocolate, I’ll take it.”

“Gross.”

“Fuck you.”

Aaron laughed again, and Andrew felt it melt away a bit of the tension in his shoulders. He ignored the twitch at the edge of his lips. He let go of his grip on the blanket, but didn’t quite move to let it fall off his shoulders yet.

“Do you have any friends here?” It was a question that was a nod to their agreement, and an acknowledgement that Andrew was just asking for the sake of it.

Aaron snorted, “Does my drug dealer count?”

Andrew raised a brow at him.

Aaron made a motion that was akin to rolling his eyes. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t really like them that much.”

Andrew nodded, tracing a finger down his shin.

“Do you have any more cop friends aside from Officer Higgins?”

Andrew stilled.

He thought back to the station at San Jose, to the first person who ever called him Andrew in Hollister, to the Sergeant’s secretary in Stockton and her friend in CSI from Martinez. He remembered the days where their collective acknowledgement of his existence was the only real reason he got up every morning.

And now here he was, with a brother who acknowledged him just as much, and a mother who wouldn’t call him by his own name. He didn’t know them. Part of him was still cautious, waiting for the move to happen, for his social worker, Mrs. Bennett, to knock on the front door and take Andrew elsewhere. Staying here was not an option he knew yet, though he knew he wasn’t going to move away any time soon.

“I have four others,” Andrew muttered. Aaron leaned in closer to hear him properly over the white noise of the fan. “Batrina, Sullivan, Bailey, and Morris. They all knew me as Andrew but none of them know where I go after I leave.”

A silence passes, comfortable and lazy. Andrew leaned forward, let the blanket fall from his front, hugged his knees. He met Aaron’s eyes slowly, and blinked.

Aaron’s eyes did not stray from Andrew’s face.

Andrew didn’t know what to feel about that.

“I’m done playing,” Andrew finally said when he really meant _I’m done hiding._


End file.
